New Hall at American Museum of Natural History Is Memorial to a Curator of Birds

The first exhibit of animals mounted in a reproduction of their native setting—the North American birds at the American Museum of Natural History—is on view again after a 10­year absence.

Reconstructed and rejuve­nated, the groups of the old bird hall have become the nu­cleus for a new collection of wildlife at the museum's Frank M. Chapman Memorial Hall, which was dedicated last night.

Dr. Chapman, the museum's curator of ornithology for more than 50 years, designed the first habitat groups, which were placed on display in 1909.

The new hall shows 160 species of birds in settings that portray prairies and forests, swamps and crags, from the snowy north to the Everglades, and includes stretches in the Bahamas.

An exhibit of Eastern coastal birds, shown during the migra­tion season on the New Jersey shore, is designed to illustrate the need for swampy and sandy coastal areas in which the birds can feed. Some of these areas are being preserved as refuges and parks, such as the Brigan­tine National Wildlife Refuge near Atlantic City.

A scene of the past, showing the marshes on the Hackensack River and Newark Bay, por­trays bobolinks, long‐billed marsh wrens and swamp spar­rows. These birds have long since abandoned the area.

Numbers of the birds on dis­play are threatened or have be­come refugees from their old

One scene shows withered leaves clinging to a tree in a landscape devised for the great horned owl and the prey in his talons.

The twigs and grasses, rocks and other props of the settings were all collected in the areas where the birds were found.

A space for a group of up­land game birds has been left vacant, with the background sketched in charcoal. The paint­ing and the placement of sage­brush, rocks and birds will be done before the public.

An entrance panel to the hall, noting that some beautiful and spectacular birds of the continent are extinct, urges the visitor “to protect and conserve all these splendid birds, tare or common, for the enjoyment of future generations.”